Like Thandiwe Newton, I want to embrace my full name in all its glory
When the actor Thandiwe Newton announced last week that she’d be reverting to the original spelling of her name, I felt some recognition. The journey her name has taken over three decades will strike a chord with many African and other non-western diasporas who have encountered the difficulty Anglophone countries have with accommodating foreign names.
While shooting Flirting (Newton’s first feature film) in 1991, the director decided to give her character her own name, Thandiwe. But in the film’s credits, Newton the actor was listed by her anglicised “nickname”, Thandie, to avoid confusion – this was done without consulting her. From then on she was known professionally as Thandie Newton.
Perhaps she knew the spelling and pronunciation of Thandiwe would be too troublesome for Hollywood. Perhaps Newton didn’t feel powerful enoughto correct it. As a Black woman in an overwhelmingly white industry, it was her job to assimilate its standards.
In an interview for British Vogue, Newton has now declared of Thandiwe: “That’s my name. It’s always been my name. I’m taking back what’s mine.”
The name is native to the Nguni languages of southern Africa. In Zimbabwe, the native home of the actor’s mother, the language is called Ndebele – the second most spoken native language of the country after Shona.
My mother’s first name, Siphilisiwe, also comes from Ndebele. Her name slowly became truncated too. Growing up, I’d feel a little pang of pity or embarrassment hearing a British person trip over its meandering five syllables. People would constantly mispronounce it. Occasionally someone would combatively ask for it to be shortened – “I can’t say that, can I call you Penny instead?” – with an unthinking ease that showed little care for the importance people attach to their names, and their languages. Sometimes my mum would offer up a nickname: “Just call me Pillie,” she’d say, as a way to ease any sense of discomfort and for others’ convenience. Slowly, Pillie became her name – in her working life, with every letter that came through the door. Except when talking to close family and friends, Siphilisiwe ceased to be.
At school, non-western names can be a source of embarrassment for many. As a teen I’d wince when my surname, Kambasha, was called out in class. I’d watch other kids whisper butchered versions of it for comic effect at my expense. I think now of the infamous mid-2000s Celebrity Big Brother incident when the late Jade Goody referred to her housemate, the actress Shilpa Shetty, as “Shilpa Poppadom’’. Goody claimed she couldn’t say her name – though it was undoubtedly a cheap joke. This sort of thing is common and is seen by many merely as harmless fun, but it can have lasting impact. Juvenile prejudice and jokes can harden into discrimination in the workplace and beyond: studies show that having an ethnic-minorityname in Britain can often be a barrier to getting a promotion, let alone a job interview.
Particularly in the past decade, and likely owing to an increased consciousness of our roots, there has been a concerted effort to encourage the appreciation of our unbutchered ethnic names. There is a greater, louder demand for westerners to respect these names in all their glory.
The Instagram account oruko.mi shares meanings behind Nigerian names while also highlighting people’s experiences with mainly western people mangling them. One user, whose name is Omotayo – meaning “a child of joy” – was nicknamed Toyota, but said that kind of ridicule “would not be their child’s narrative”. Thandiwe means loosely “you are loved”, and my own middle name, Thandekile, given to me informally by my grandmother, also comes from the same meaning. Siphilisiwe, my mum’s name, means “we have been given life”. It’s our job to ensure that these names continue unaltered, that their meanings remain and are protected.
Having names carelessly handled – even taken away from us – has an effect on one’s identity. It can feel like something is being slowly wiped away, leaving you feeling like a faded sketch of a person, not fully realised. And while amended names such as Thandie or Pillie allude to foreign origins, they don’t really belong in their native homes either. Such names, seemingly born out of a necessity for mutual understanding in one home, leave us feeling incomplete in our other home too. We are left stuck in the uncertain purgatory of the diaspora.
Thandekile doesn’t appear in any of my official documents. My first and middle names are western and my last is Shona, but I have always wanted something tangible to honour my Ndebele roots. My job is in the music industry: several years ago after working on the release of an album by the American band The War on Drugs, I received a gold record after hitting a sales milestone. I wanted my full name emblazoned on it: Michelle AnnaMaria Thandekile Kambasha. That disk is now hammered proudly to the wall of my parents’ living room in Harare. I can only imagine that when Thandiwe Newton first picked up a copy of Vogue this month, her name written across the cover in large letters, she felt a similar sense of pride – righting a wrong, defiantly reclaiming what was always hers.
Michelle Kambasha works in the music industry
against a number of Sinn Féin officials in the aftermath of the Bobby Storey funeral in June 2020 has prompted the first minister, Arlene Foster, to call for the resignation of the PSNI chief constable, Simon Byrne. To say that mainstream unionism has effectively pulled the rug out from under the concept of policing by consent would be an understatement. That is an incredibly dangerous sentiment that has played out on the streets of Belfast over the past week.
Water cannon and rubber bullets being used once again on young people is reminiscent of a time that those young people don’t even remember. They were supposed to be the generation that inherited the peace, and instead they got secondhand trauma that hangs all around them in the murals, in the flags, in the memorials to the murdered and those who took life.
Working-class loyalists feel left behind and ignored. I am not here to debate the merits of that, or the so-called siege mentality of loyalism. However there is a deep-rooted anger there that has been both been ignored by mainstream unionism and used time and again by the DUP and the Ulster Unionist party for political machinations when it suited them. The fear of a united Ireland and what that will mean for unionism is amped up at election time, and tensions are stoked by both political unionism and “stakeholders” within loyalism, such as the Loyalist Communities Council. And for what? What has fundamentally changed, or got better for working-class loyalist communities in Northern Ireland? They deserve better than being lied to and led up the hill, then abandoned when violence erupts.
The scenes over recent nights at Lanark Way and on the interface between the New Lodge and Tiger’s Bay, dividing lines between the two communities in Belfast, have attracted the attention of the chattering classes around the UK: subsequently we’ve been delivered an all-you-can eat buffet of ill-informed opinions from commentators and politicians alike confidently declaring that this all dates back to Brexit. That is an insult to people on both sides of those peace walls who have been struggling to survive under the weight of their own trauma for long enough.
These are the same communities that were devastated by the conflict, and have been left to rebuild and recover without the attention and support that they deserve. On either side of the Lanark Way peace gates, you will find two of the most deprived areas in the whole of Northern Ireland. That deprivation is measured in income levels, employment, health and disability, education, crime, access to services and living environment. Those young people throwing petrol bombs over the wall at each other are the same in so many ways, and have been utterly let down by the political establishment here.
Stephen Donnan-Dalzell is a writer and human rights activist based in Belfast